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Skyforger / Blog

Skyforger new album update

Hey guys, this is Peter here.

It’s first days of the year and it seems like a good opportunity to tell what SKYFORGER is been up to lately. Since summer we have been actively working on new music and I would like to share a few words about our upcoming album.

The new album will be dedicated to Old Prussians - now an extinct Baltic people, who lived in a place later known as German Prussia. They were conquered in 13th century by Crusader invaders, such as Teutonic Order and through the centuries, part of them were assimilated by German settlers while the rest perished after the many wars and plagues.

Old Prussians were the third Baltic nation besides Latvians and Lithuanians and at those times they played a great role for all Baltic people. Thanks to them we (Latvians and Lithuanians) survived while they took the hardest strike and therefore disappeared in the depths of history. Unfortunately, even a lot of Latvians and Lithuanians today know almost nothing about them and that is why I have chosen to dedicate an album to Old Prussians.

My aim is to cover all most important parts of their history, like their struggle against invaders, their customs, religion and beliefs, their life and downfall. Right now, we have composed almost all songs for this album – looks like there will be 9 heavy songs and maybe two folk-tunes. In my view this new one will be harsher and "more metal" than "Kurbads", though as always we are experimenting in the process, sometimes even in the studio and it is hard yet to predict how it all will turn out.

Our next step is to do raw recording for all songs we got here and then make last rearrangements to be 100% ready when we will hit the studio for final recording session. Also still a lot of lyrics need to be written and thanks to my laziness looks like this will take some time.

Anyway, we have new album on the way and if everything will go right, it should be out in autumn of 2013. If there will be any more news - we will surely inform you, so stay in touch!

On the last note I would like to greet and thank everyone who came to see any of our live battles in 2012, or supported SKYFORGER in one way or another - for example, bought our albums or voted for us on Sweden Rock Festival band competition. We really appreciate your efforts!

Hails to all of you. Happy 2013!

Peter's personal history blog

SKYFORGER frontman PETER has launched a personal blog about various topics Skyforger are singing about, and we are looking out especially for those people who are interested and want to know more about BALTIC history & mythology. Welcome!

http://history.skyforger.lv/

New album "Kurbads"- coming soon!

A little bit about new album concept...

"Kurbads" is the name of legendary hero from Latvian fairytales. He was born magically from the white mare, grew up very fast and was unimaginably strong! In his tale he travels the world, fights various evil creatures, especially his sworn enemy Snake Witch, ventures into realm of the dead to save daughter of the king, finds the hard way out of there and finally fights in last epic battle against Snake Witch and her champion.

Tales about Kurbads are half fairytales and half legends. They were collected and recorded at the end of 19th century by some folk enthusiasts and are type of "told from mouth to mouth, from generation to generations". Mainly these stories are short or middle length and have many variations. There are several heroes, who were born from various beings and things. For example: son of wood, son of iron, son of blacksmith, son of ox, son of pea, son of wolf and most known - son of bear. From the tale about son of bear there was later written our national epos "The Bear Slayer" (in Latvian called "Lāčplēsis").

The main story for all of them however in common is very same with some variations. The thing for me there is that some parts, in my view, are coming from very old past, from times of the totemism, when some powerful beast (bear or white mare) appears as the first father/mother of some tribe or even nation! Unfortunately, as it happens with such things, these stories are changed all the way through the centuries, some things are forgotten and other things are imagined anew by the tellers themselves. But the very core of those tales still is the same and mainly it is a legend about Dragonslayer, which has almost every Indo-European nation - the man who fights against some mythic evil force and becomes a legend.

We believe that the tale about "KURBADS" is interesting enough as it discovers many things from the past of Latvian people - not historical facts of course, but things from daily life and way of thinking of people who lived in ancient times. Baltic cultural heritage is mostly unknown for the rest of the Europe (even as it is a part of it!) and world, so we want to uncover it a bit as best as we can and show that there, in Baltic (Latvian and Lithuanian) literature is as great legends and tales as those about Cuchulainn, Nibelungs, Kalevala, King Arthur and the knights of the round table and such!

More news about album will be posted, as they happens.